“Nine years, when you’re talking about a decision of this magnitude, it really took me aback,” said Tom Parker, the dean of admissions at Amherst College. “What happens with the next president, the next Supreme Court appointee? Do we revisit it again, so that higher education is zigging and zagging? If the court says that any consideration of race whatsoever is prohibited, then we’re in a real pickle. Bright kids have no interest in homogeneity. They find it creepy.”

Obviously, Amherst could have lots and lots of Asians if it wanted them, so "homogeneity," creepy or not, is hardly a threat. But this gets at a subtle point of what is part of the package of what luxury colleges like Amherst are selling, which is that smart, studious blacks are the ultimate luxury good. Everybody has grown up being told how great blacks are, but most white people's real life experiences have tended to be a little disappointing compared to what we hear about in school and on PBS. But everybody knows that somewhere out there there must be the right kind of blacks. It's your own fault you aren't classy enough to be admitted to the right circles. But, maybe your kids can be!

So that's one of the things that elite colleges offer: carefully vetted blacks. They're very expensive, which is why the richest, most hard-to-get-into colleges (e.g., Stanford) have more of them than the not so rich, not quite as hard to get into colleges.

The man in the White House is, in this sense, a democratic luxury good. We can't all go to the Ivy League, but we can have the honor of voting for an Ivy League black as President, and thus earn some indirect classiness.

60 comments:

helene edwards
said...

This Amherst admissions guy doesn't sound very bright. Obviously, if the Court were to prohibit "any consideration of race whatsoever," there would be no "pickle" in terms of pleasing the kids because they'd find the rule the same at any public U. they applied to. Second, this notion of kids being depressed by non-diversity is mere wishful thinking if my observations at Berkeley are any guide. Before prop. 209, blacks self-segregated, both in their class choices (almost all enthic studies), and socially (colonizing one spot in Sproul Plaza). Third, the guy's an idiot because readily available legal commentary (e.g. Volokh) has it that the issue won't be preferences per se, preferences for blacks, but rather that of giving them to groups, such as Mexican immigrants, with no history of overt discrimination in this country. That is, even if O'Connor's Grutter position were modified, blacks would likely not be affected.

To be clear, at UT-Austin, because of the 10% rule the school already has lots of non-Asian minorities from low performing schools. The suing student is not in the top 10% of her class, but is from a high-performing school and has better test scores and grades than most in the non-10% pool. However, affirmative action is still being applied in that student pool. Its totally insane.

Affirmative Action is doomed. It was a product of the guilt-ridden postwar generation. While younger people may still believe that blacks face discriminatory obstacles, they don't have the penetrating guilt necessary to becoming exercised about it. Add to that the culture war and the fact that it is widely hated among the right-leaning segment of the population. That AA applies to groups that have nothing to do with its original purpose is just adding insult to injury.

It may survive this challenge, but in the end a potent offense beats a tepid defense, and AA's days are numbered. Incidentally, is it just me or is "Affirmative Action" just about the most useless neologism ever coined? Pretend you know nothing about it and try to figure out what that actually refers to.

Admissions directors are the ultimate politicians in town vs. gown and a lot more business-minded than their colleagues. I doubt whether the man sincerely has a problem with "homogeneity." However the Amherst undergrad is encouraged to think of himself or herself as 100% hand-picked premium black/transgender/Muslim/North Dakotan which is not exactly conducive to learning but ensures a lively campus for afficionados of intrigue and backbiting.

So now he's outright framing the issue based on intelligence, not a postjudicious preference for one's own kind. Clever technique to manipulate the "correct" reaction in the reader who wants to think of himself as intelligent, but it's otherwise an extremely weak point lacking anything to back it up. He might as well have used the "all right thinking people agree" argument. I'm now curious of the demographics of this bright fellows zip.

Nobody but nobody cares enough about the "efficiency" argument (marginally better education with diversity) to get as upset about this issue as they do. What they care about is equity. They don't want to come out and say it, in part for the suspect reasons you cite. And so we see the spectacle of people having paroxyms of self-righteous rage over . . . alleged (though unproven) *educational outcomes*? It's the dog that barked too loudly.

There really aren't enough blacks to warrant an attitude that including some of them at elite universities costs deserving students their slots. Only the marginal admits will have had their ambitions slightly downgraded.

I've always wondered how the average man is supposed to square the broad differential between the contrived equality of television and film, which I've come to think of as Black Lady Judge Land, and reality.

And I'm sure that many naive working class Americans of all races believe there's a whole other country out there somewhere where these people exist like Eloi (every now and then we get to devour one through scandal), and it's there that things are right and true. They watch television and indulge the fantasy they would thrive there, if they had been better born.

Ironically, the Noble Lie of the Black Lady Judge depends heavily on the ignorance engendered by limited real-world contact.

it wasnt the racial aspects of AA that destroyed education near as much as the entitlement of the very White Girls themselves (now complaining about their own Identity Caste Sistem LOL)

the u.s. could have absorbed the racial fallout of CRA '64, but not the gender-cleansing that followed, which gutted the nation theologically, economically, intellectually, creatively, and sociopolitically

the locusts have already stripped the fields, and now the Court will sit and argue the distribution of empty stalks

the contrived equality of television and film, which I've come to think of as Black Lady Judge Land

Recently I was in a Berkeley institution called Top Dog, where a black judge show was on. I remarked to another customer, an Asian student, how incongruous it was, and the suasage-slicer on duty threw me out. This is a place where the owner scatters libertarian magazines around.

Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas are all sure to vote against affirmative action. The swing voter on left / right cases, Kennedy, voted against affirmative action in the 2003 5-4 decision allowing racial “diversity” to be a “plus factor”, written by Sandra Day O’Conner. Kagen who’s on the left of course has recused herself because she argued the case for the Feds in a lower court, but that doesn't really matter much because a 4-4 tie would leave the decision of the Appellate court below in place, and it was for affirmative action being upheld.

The left is mighty worried. Heh.

Logically if race based AA gets banned from college admissions, it should be banned from corporate hiring as well. Also if discrimination including so called positive discrimination on the basis of race is banned it should be banned on the basis of sex as well, under the civil rights acts.

As long as the courts continue to hand out big awards in "disparate impact" cases, raced-based discrimination will remain a fact of life.

The four conservative judges seem ready to do away with disparate impact as well. That's actually mandated by statute but that statute would seem to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

It all depends on how Kennedy goes on that, when a disparate impact case gets to the Supremes. He seems to want to at least greatly restrict it. He might go against it.

Obviously, Amherst could have lots and lots of Asians if it wanted them, so "homogeneity," creepy or not, is hardly a threat. But this gets at a subtle point of what is part of the package of what luxury colleges like Amherst are selling, which is that smart, studious blacks are the ultimate luxury good.

Given the collapse of the birth rate in the black middle class they're going to become even rarer and more luxurious soon. 1994 was the seminal year, so the crunch should be starting right about now.

The reasonable assumption would be bright kids have a range of interests, some of them like it, some of them dont. Maybe they want to be surrounded by other bright kids? They idea that they would really, actually, genuinely make a fetish out of diversity sounds like nonsense.

Of course, for career reasons they may have to pretend to like it later on.

I've always wondered how the average man is supposed to square the broad differential between the contrived equality of television and film, which I've come to think of as Black Lady Judge Land, and reality. - Dennis Dale

I fear for a lot of average people what they see on TV is assumed to be real and that their own life experience is the outlier, the abnormal. Which is of course the whole purpose of the propaganda project.

Didnt Steve mention a study last year where a representative group were asked to estimate the number of gays in the population and the consensus seemed to be @ 25%.

Staggering.

They can only have got this estimate from TV. Not by looking round at people they actually know themselves. Even a lot of gays (most?) would probably not be able to claim that 25% of the people they knew were gay.

So I fear that a lot of people are thinking that their experience is atypical and yes, there is that hairdresser they know but somewhere else, out of sight, in the next town whatever there are a ton of gays.

"The four conservative judges seem ready to do away with disparate impact as well."

The Supreme Court did this once already, in the Wards Cove case in 1989, which trimmed back Griggs by requiring that an employer only show a "business justification," rather than a "business necessity," for an employment qualification having a differential racial effect. After some wailing and gnashing of teeth, orchestrated (if I recall correctly) principally by Teddy Kennedy, Congress passed, and Bush I signed, an amendment to the Civil Rights Act overruling Wards Cove. Given Congress' 13 Amendment power to outlaw "badges of slavery," it seems unlikely that the Supreme Court would declare this legislation unconstitutional on equal protection grounds.

If I wanted to get around this as a university, I'd maintain a relatively mediocre SAT minimum, select who I wanted based on multiple other factors; of course, i'd also pander to high scorers with special programs, full scholarships, etc.

The ivies can already do this due to their more thorough admissions process. I predict not much will change even if the ruling gets overturned. Universities with a liberal bias will engage in social engineering one way or another.

However, there is a possibility that some schools will embrace the opportunity to return to a more merit based admissions policy. I somehow doubt UT will be one of them. Sad for people whose parents and possibly grandparents attended the school.

I've long advocated an expansion of school choice at the university level anyway. It seems as much about homogeneity for the majority of high school graduates to attend one of a handful of popular institutions in a state no matter what their ethnicity.

So what are the creepy schools? Among national private schools, mid-tier Catholic schools with good sports teams are heavily white - BC, Villanova, Notre Dame. Northwestern used to be, but it's been under diversity pressure over the last few years. Mid-tier but still very expensive schools like Georgetown, GW, and NYU attract full-ride foreigners, so they're more diverse. But do the students at BC or ND (or Penn State) feel they're missing out? Alumni are famously loyal at each of these schools, so I'm guessing probably not.

Two of the funniest lines I think I've read in years in regards to things ethnic and racial, I did spray the computer screen with some green tea on reading the first one.

"smart, studious blacks are the ultimate luxury good."

"elite colleges offer: carefully vetted blacks."

These statements would also apply to high cost residential areas. Will future generations be able to gauge their economic and social success by the yardstick of their African-American neighbors, friends and associates?

After some wailing and gnashing of teeth, orchestrated (if I recall correctly) principally by Teddy Kennedy, Congress passed, and Bush I signed, an amendment to the Civil Rights Act overruling Wards Cove.

I take a back seat to nobody in my contempt for Ted Kennedy. But I'm bemused by all the people I encounter online who attribute near god-like powers to the man.

east asians have no problem with blinding, uniform homogeneity. and they're pretty smart. they greatly prefer it in their own nations. and they'd have no problem with plenty of US universities turning 100% east asian. in fact lots of them would enjoy it.

methinks the amherst offical is swallowing the kool-aid, and parroting the US supreme court's contention that there exists a "compelling interest" in physical diversity, for physical diversity's sake.

this statement on the matter is classic "remove as many europeans as possible" intellectual dishonesty. in reality, almost all groups are highly comfortable with genetic homogeneity. good students, from any group, do not benefit at all from jamming a bunch of underqualified students into the best universities. these people genuinely contribute almost nothing, and are actually a net drain on the intellectual atmosphere.

So a college admissions dean comes right out and says if NAMs can't get special preferences, they won't be able to get into college. Does he listen to himself when he talks? Who's the "racist" here?

Affirmative action will continue to exist in some form, regardless of what the courts do. John Derbyshire explained why it's necessary years ago: we've imported millions of people to take over the labor and service jobs (the few we have left) that are most suitable for people in the 80-95 IQ range. (As Derb put it, we decided we'd rather have our menial tasks done by small, grateful, brown people than by large, angry, black people.) That leaves a large group of people who need to be bumped up into clerical positions, preferably in government where performance isn't relevant. Funneling them through college is part of that process.

According to Wikipedia, 2009 college enrollment rates for high school students were 92.2% for Asians, 69.2% for Whites, 68.7% for Blacks, and 59.3% for Hispanics. Would anyone like to guess how those numbers would change if race-based preferences were truly eliminated? Can you imagine the screaming -- from all directions -- if the year after a big SCOTUS decision those numbers changed to 75% White and 20% Black? That can't be allowed to happen.

Except in the homogeneity of being bright. I mean they don't seem to have too much tolerance for dummies like Sarah Palin.

There is a reason for bright people being less worried about homogeneity. The community of the bright is always very small, and bright people favor other bright people(of whatever color or background)than dumb people of their own kind. You can almost pretend to live inside a bubble of specialness where the price of admittance is intelligence, talent, skill, etc.If you have an IQ of 150 and have great knowledge of intellectual stuff, would you rather hang with a really smart Asian-Indian or Jewish-American or Turkish guy or with dumb white trash with ass tattoo who don't know shit about nuttin?

Also, bright people of all color tend to be less physically dangerous. So, if a poor dumb white guy fears a poor dumb black guy--built like Mike Tyson and just as dumb--, there isn't much reason for a smart white guy to fear from someone like Obama or Truth(over here).

Diversity at top plays out differently than at bottom. Indeed, even in the bad old days of 'racism' and imperialism, the upper crust British elites cordially rubbed shoulders with Africa, Indian, and Middle Eastern elites while lower class whites had to deal with the problematic unwashed elements of non-white communities. (And non-whites elites often preferred the company of white elites than with their own people. This was certainly true of Shah of Iran, who to commemorate Persepolis, invited powerful white folks but snubbed his own people. And Gaddafi's sons preferred dilly dallying with Western elites than going amongst the unwashed Arab goat herders.)

Just like war looks different to the generals perched on high above, diversity looks different from the vantage point of elites. Elites just see rainbow color from afar(and enjoy the company of fancy non-white elites close up)and don't see the blood that stains diversity that is happening among the masses.

If I hadn't seen what I seen firsthand and had led an existence as a privileged elite member, I'd prolly be a liberal too.

". So, if a poor dumb white guy fears a poor dumb black guy--built like Mike Tyson and just as dumb--, there isn't much reason for a smart white guy to fear from someone like Obama or Truth(over here)."

Why thank you, I believe that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me here.

Actually, Steve, that's more evidence like your famous analysis of "Susan researched this" commercial for Countrywide or whoever, complete with granite counters, of a bubble in higher ed. Glenn Reynolds has been predicting this for years. MIT has the MIT X online education forum ... WITH CERTIFICATIONS. This was inevitable.

A Stanford, an MIT, an Ohio State, a Notre Dame, can pick up "free money" by offering many classes online for free or vastly reduced rates, with certifications. So you can say, stay at home, finish in two/three years, for a fraction of the cost of a traditional degree, have a certification -- debt free! Or nearly so. And you can take lower wages, so employers will prefer a guy with an MITX certification in say, accounting, over a four-year degree from say Amherst, because the MITX guy has skills guaranteed (that MITX certification) to a minimum level, and will work for a third the cost of the Amherst guy.

Meaning you'll have Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and maybe a few others where really rich guys go (and those who want social connections with them) and pretty much everyone else falls to the online level.

THAT is the socially transformative power of technology. We DO live in a Sci-Fi world. We just often don't recognize it.

Let me add I don't think I've ever seen a more wise comment than Dennis Dale's on the culture affect of Noble Lie Black Lady judges.

He's just spot on. Which was why the change will not come legally, just like Segregation was not killed by Homer Plessy (a decent and courageous man who bet on the legal system and lost) but by the uber-political campaigner King, who studied Wayne B. Wheeler's campaign for Prohibition. Change comes from culture first, and that means TV mostly and movies secondarily.

“Nine years, when you’re talking about a decision of this magnitude, it really took me aback,” said Tom Parker, the dean of admissions at Amherst College. “What happens with the next president, the next Supreme Court appointee? Do we revisit it again, so that higher education is zigging and zagging? If the court says that any consideration of race whatsoever is prohibited, then we’re in a real pickle. Bright kids have no interest in homogeneity. They find it creepy.”

Bright = "able to juggle the contradictions the Masters of the Universe force on you," I suppose. Take "diversity." The vast majority of the planet fails Fails FAILS the "diversity" test. China, India, Japan, sub-Saharan Africa... they're quite homogenous, and their "diversity" is far too subtle to satisfy the Cult of Diversity. Very few places can satisfy the non-"creepy" criterion this fellow is describing. But calling vast swathes of the planet (all characterized primarily by their not-Whiteness) "creepy" is raciss, right? How can the Anglosphere be the height of not-creepiness? That would be raciss!

There will always be affirmative action in the academy. Without it, there would be so few blacks and Hispanics in selective colleges and the well-paid prestigious professions that they will riot in the streets.

We will just disguise the process better. Some years ago, post-Bakke, I was on the faculty of the professional school of a highly liberal university. With quotas banned, there was a separate sub-panel of the Admissions Committee which basically evaluated NAM's. The end result was that the entering classes have a racial mix about the same as pre-Bakke.

If you have an IQ of 150 and have great knowledge of intellectual stuff, would you rather hang with a really smart Asian-Indian or Jewish-American or Turkish guy or with dumb white trash with ass tattoo who don't know shit about nuttin?"

When it's that extreme, sure. But would a 150-IQ white rather hang with a 150-IQ "Turkish guy" or a 125-IQ white guy who shares the same general culture and background? The white guy might not be his intellectual equal, but he's smart enough to carry on a conversation about most things, and the shared culture means they'll have more things to have a conversation about. If you're that smart, you've spent your entire life living and socializing with people well below your congnitive level. You may get a charge out of working or studying with equally smart people, but odds are you'll be perfectly comfortable with a roommate who's only "kinda smart."

That doesn't really apply to the question here anyway, because ending race-based preferences wouldn't keep them from admitting 150-IQ NAMs, after all. They'd qualify under any system. He didn't say the bright kids wanted other bright kids around, and bright kids are so rare that they have to find them in all cultures and nations. He just said, flat out, that bright kids want people around who are different, so the colleges need the freedom to bring in less bright NAMs to satisfy that desire for diversity.

That smart people crave diversity is probably the most untrue thing I've heard this week. They may be able to handle it better -- as you say, diversity at the upper levels of income or IQ doesn't mean violence and competition for jobs the way it does at lower levels. But do smart people crave diversity? Absolutely not.

I hate to go there, but doesn't "bright" often seem to be used as a synonym for "Jewish" these days? The above would be an example of this. I'm a white gentile who (years ago) did my undergrad work at a 90%+ white university - and it never occurred to me that I was in a "creepy" place.

Parts of KMac seem increasingly less like a just-so screed: for example, his contention that Jews are far more comfortable among a mix of races in which gentile whites are absolutely minimized (aka "diversity"), everyone else's ideas of comfort be damned.

Given the collapse of the birth rate in the black middle class they're going to become even rarer and more luxurious soon. 1994 was the seminal year, so the crunch should be starting right about now.

Do you have any links with hard stats?

I have noticed this sort of thing anecdotally in my life [the smart* black chicks NEVER seem to have babies], and Murray's infamous Footnote #44 provides some more fodder, but I've never seen any lengthier analysis.

*One time when Walter Williams was guest-hosting the Rush Limbaugh show, his only child called in to talk to him, and she sounded like a really fun, with-it chick, but, as best I can tell, she is now about 37 years old, single, and has no children.

"In the comments section of the last post, reader SFG wonders about the characteristics of people who are smart but who do not go to college.

....

I'll attempt to list factors from most powerful to least: older, white, being surveyed in earlier years, female, having an educated father, going to church less often, and having fewer children.

Older people from earlier cohorts were less likely to go to college, even if they were intelligent. The same for women. Blacks are much less likely to be bright people who fail to attend college. Having a successful father can sometimes open a good career path that requires no higher education. Perhaps irreligiosity indicates unconventionality."

Completely serious question here - what is stop a white kid from just declaring himself black on application? He may run into a thicket for schools that require an interview, but it seems like it would be easy to do and to defend. He could always just claim he had a grandmother that was 1/8 black or whatever.

But white folks built all the good stuff that everyone wants. If white folks hadn't existed, there wouldn't be modern colleges, cars, airplanes, medicine, chemistry, etc. So, if whites favored whites in the past, it was in areas that they invented and built up.

I'm not so sure about that. I think that part of "the Left" which provides the campaign funding intend to throw black people under the bus when they have enough asians and hispanics which isn't that far off.

One further note about the local mini-chain hot dog restaurant called Top Dog (aside from the fact that their food is really good) - the owner is indeed a sort of crackpot libertarian, and will let you buy your meal at 1965 (or maybe 1963?) prices, if you pay with pre-1965 (or -1963) coins.

Here's the Google Wallet FAQ. From it: "You will need to have (or sign up for) Google Wallet to send or receive money. If you have ever purchased anything on Google Play, then you most likely already have a Google Wallet. If you do not yet have a Google Wallet, don’t worry, the process is simple: go to wallet.google.com and follow the steps." You probably already have a Google ID and password, which Google Wallet uses, so signing up Wallet is pretty painless.

You can put money into your Google Wallet Balance from your bank account and send it with no service fee.

Google Wallet works from both a website and a smartphone app (Android and iPhone -- the Google Wallet app is currently available only in the U.S., but the Google Wallet website can be used in 160 countries).

Or, once you sign up with Google Wallet, you can simply send money via credit card, bank transfer, or Wallet Balance as an attachment from Google's free Gmail email service. Here'show to do it.

(Non-tax deductible.)

Fourth: if you have a Wells Fargo bank account, you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Wells Fargo SurePay. Just tell WF SurePay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). (Non-tax deductible.)

Fifth: if you have a Chase bank account (or, theoretically,other bank accounts), you can transfer money to me (with no fees) via Chase QuickPay (FAQ). Just tell Chase QuickPay to send the money to my ancient AOL email address (steveslrATaol.com -- replace the AT with the usual @). If Chase asks for the name on my account, it's Steven Sailer with an n at the end of Steven. (Non-tax deductible.)

My Book:

"Steve Sailer gives us the real Barack Obama, who turns out to be very, very different - and much more interesting - than the bland healer/uniter image stitched together out of whole cloth this past six years by Obama's packager, David Axelrod. Making heavy use of Obama's own writings, which he admires for their literary artistry, Sailer gives the deepest insights I have yet seen into Obama's lifelong obsession with 'race and inheritance,' and rounds off his brilliant character portrait with speculations on how Obama's personality might play out in the Presidency." - John Derbyshire Author, "Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics" Click on the image above to buy my book, a reader's guide to the new President's autobiography.